Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change - InterAcademy Council Review

InterAcademy Council Review

In March 2010, at the invitation of the United Nations secretary-general and the chair of the IPCC, the InterAcademy Council (IAC) was asked to review the IPCC's processes for developing its reports. The IAC panel, chaired by Harold Tafler Shapiro, convened on 14 May 2010 and released its report on 1 September 2010.

The IAC found that, "The IPCC assessment process has been successful overall". The panel, however, made seven formal recommendations for improving the IPCC's assessment process, including:

1. establish an executive committee;
2. elect an executive director whose term would only last for one assessment;
3. encourage review editors to ensure that all reviewer comments are adequately considered and genuine controversies are adequately reflected in the assessment reports;
4. adopt a better process for responding to reviewer comments;
5. working groups should use a qualitative level-of-understanding scale in the Summary for Policy Makers and Technical Summary;
6. "Quantitative probabilities (as in the likelihood scale) should be used to describe the probability of well-defined outcomes only when there is sufficient evidence"; and
7. implement a communications plan that emphasizes transparency and establish guidelines for who can speak on behalf of the organization.

The panel also advised that the IPCC avoid appearing to advocate specific policies in response to its scientific conclusions. Commenting on the IAC report, Nature News noted that "The proposals were met with a largely favourable response from climate researchers who are eager to move on after the media scandals and credibility challenges that have rocked the United Nations body during the past nine months".